Question 1

I am looking to get Hydro Series H100i GTX, am I blind but there arent any usb headers on this board (internal)?

Accepted Answer

I am running this board with H100i GTX CPU cooler in a Corsair 380t case. I plugged the pump into the CPU fan header on the motherboard and the fans into the case's fan controller.

There were USB headers that I connected to the 2 front USB 3.0 ports of the case, along with the other front panel standards (mic, headphones, lights, etc.)

ASRock Z170 LGA 1151 + Intel i7 6700k + Corsair H100i GTX + Corsair 380t = 4.6 GHz overclock using the motherboard preset, and it was easy and stable. I wouldn't do it any other way.

Question 2

My paranoia is killing me -- I know I have the correct answer but the PCI Express slot is a 3.0, correct? The specification not mentioning is driving me up a wall for some reason. Thanks in advance to any responses!

Accepted Answer

Yes it is a 3.0 x16 slot. Says so on ASRock's site, too. Great little board.

Question 3

I know this has sort of been asked, but I am still really concerned about the heat potentially caused on the backside of the board by an M.2 drive. Partially worried about throttling, but also worried about the fact the the m.2 card will sit right on the backside of the northbridge. Has anyone has any issues with this when transferring large files?

The case I'm looking at will NOT provide airflow to the back of the board.

Accepted Answer

I've got this in a Phanteks Evolv ITX and don't have anny issues with the NB or m.2 overheating. Got a Samsung 850 EVO (so just SATA-based m.2, not PCI-e).

I've been able to push my i7-6700k to 4.6 stable (haven't really tried for much more, but it did boot at 4.8, but failed to run x264 testing) without any throttling or other issues.

Question 4

Thinking about using this for my HTPC build, checking the manufacturer website it says it supports HDMI 2.0 (4k @ 60hz).  Has anyone confirmed this as of yet?  Anyone running a 4k TV off of this board?  Thanks!

Accepted Answer

Thanks Fernando, that's what I was afraid of. It seems that the HDMI spec hasn't settled yet. I was hoping enough time had passed by now.  I don't have a 4K TV as of yet, I wanted to upgrade my 2012 era HTPC and wanted to "future proof" it as much as possible. I just read that Microsoft is going to stop pushing out updates for Skylake users on Win7x64 in a few months as well. Since I've got a Ceton CableCard that requires WMC, I'm kind of stuck here.

Question 5

Has anyone installed the new Samsung NVMe 950 pro (512gb) on this as a bootable windows drive?

Does anyone have a step by step of their experience and how to get this set up right in the BIOS?

AsRock customer support is on vacation for Chinese New Year

Accepted Answer

That is the drive I installed when I purchased the motherboard.  There was no BIOS configuration needed on my part, it was selected as the primary storage device automatically.  Windows 10 installed from a thumb drive saw it right away.  My read/write speed tests have been on par with the Samsung manufacturer speeds.

Question 6

Will the Ultra M.2 slot slow down the video card since it will be using 4 of the PCI express 3.0 x16lanes?

And will it be using a (x8,x8) set up if you add a "SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4" into the m.2 slot?

How will it work?

Accepted Answer

Skylake provides two "sets" of PCIe 3.0 lanes:  x16 lanes are directly from the CPU which are utilized exclusively by the boards PCIe slots and an additional x20 lanes are provided by the PCH/Chipset which are utilized for I/O and storage.

The Skylake PCH/Chipset provides these x20 lanes through the DMI 3.0 (x4) connection  These x20 PCIe 3.0 lanes are specifically provided and reserved for the various I/O and storage connections that require lanes. The motherboard's USB 2.0/3.0/3.1, Ultra M.2, SATAe, etc. utilize these x20 lanes provided by the PCH exclusively and DO NOT depend on the x16 lanes provided by the CPU.  The x16 lanes provided by the CPU are therefore left free to be used by whatever card(s) you may have inserted into the motherboard's PCIe slots, whether it's a GPU, 10Gbps NIC, etc.  So, basically, an M.2 PCIe 3.0x4 nVME SSD (like the Samsung 950) inserted into this specific board's M.2 slot will utilize x4 of the x20 available lanes provided by the PCH/Chipset, while still leaving the x16 lanes provided by the CPU untouched.  On this, or any Skylake Z170 board, you can have an m.2 PCIe 3.0x4 SSD AND a discrete GPU installed simultaneously, and BOTH will receive 100% of the bandwidth they desire, x16 lanes for the GPU and x4 lanes for the M.2 drive.

Question 7

Am i able to use one stick of 16GB DDR4 Ram? starting out..then add a second stick later when i have the money?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but you'll be missing out on the slight speed boost you'd get from dual channel by using two sticks.

Question 8

Does this motherboard support Intel Xeon E3-1200 series processors?

Accepted Answer

The ASUS product page for this doesn't specifically mention this processor, but I'm guessing that since this that is a Sandy-Bridge based processor that is already EOL, it is NOT supported.

This motherboard supports only socket 1151 processors like Skylake.

Question 9

Regarding the M.2 slot and the compatibility and the SATA-e, ASrock states that "If M2_1 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_0, SATA3_1 and the SATA function of SATA_EXP0 will be disabled." As far I can tell it specifically states using SATA type M.2 but would this still be the case if using a PCI-e Gen3 x4? Can any one confirm?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it is still the case.  I have a Samsung PCIe drive in the M.2 and i cannot use those other SATA slots.

Question 10

Does anyone know if there is a Linux lm-sensors program that shows not only cpu temps but voltages and fan speeds? It done with sensors-detect. The ASRock Z87 boards that the Linux working for it.

Accepted Answer

Yes, lm_sensors will read voltages and fan speed on this motherboard. I tested on my Arch Linux install with version 3.4 of lm_sensors

Questions & Answers